Friday, June 5, 2009

Who We Are

The Ontario Public service (OPS) Careers Island expands the notions of traditional ‘employment outreach’ through a online virtual collaborative tool where Second Life users tour government work environments to learn more about the merits of public service work.

Avatars, also called “career tourists”, learn and discover career opportunities in the OPS and showcase a variety of ways to educate, demonstrate and promote the important and innovative work we do in the OPS.

The OPS Careers Island showcases a myriad of career streams where users can interactively explore real-life public service work in action. The Island features a variety of career destinations including the Central Orientation Hub, where avatars are greeted by real ‘OPS’ Staff, a Traffic Media Transportation Centre, where avatars explored ‘real’-time’, live webcast of Ontario’s roads and highways, and a Lands and Resources destination, where users get to learn about the important work public servants do towards sustaining our natural resources and the environment.

Other key features also include career-specific ‘role-playing’ interactivity including: fighting a forest fire; administering CPR; testing water samples to check for harmful substances (i.e. E-coli); and participating with an interactive learning tool about Ontario business and economy facts.

We are now expanding to include an I&IT hub and a Policy hub that will focus on how accessibility and how the OPS can learn from the virtual community what best practice regarding accessiblity is online and to reaise awareness about the importance of diversity and inclusiveness across all communication platforms. In addition, we have made our island French Language compatible and you will find our resources availabe in both French and English.

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If you'd like to participate, please click here.

Thursday, June 4, 2009